


Free Coffee at the Emerald Bridges Bookshop

by Ellerigby13



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Notting Hill Fusion, Alternate Universe - P.S. I Love You Fusion, F/M, Falling In Love, Grief/Mourning, Half-Siblings, Jewish Darcy Lewis, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24732301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellerigby13/pseuds/Ellerigby13
Summary: After her mother's death, Darcy Lewis, aka quasi-famous romance novelist Daria Vogelsong, finds herself on a months-long trip to small town Connecticut guided by Abbi Lewis's letters.  On the road to self-discovery, she also finds a half-sibling, a handsome bookstore owner, and a whole lot of free coffee.Inspired in part by Notting Hill and P.S. I Love You.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Comments: 68
Kudos: 126





	1. into each life some rain must fall

**Author's Note:**

> Big gigantic thanks to [girlinthecorner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlinthecorner) for her awesome beta powers <3

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” - Mitch Albom,  _ Tuesdays with Morrie _

“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.” - Terry Pratchett,  _ Reaper Man _

* * *

_ Three Days After _

If Darcy had to hear one more person say that Abigail Lewis was gone too soon, she was going to projectile vomit all over them.

One: nobody who really knew her mom ever called her Abigail. She always, without fail, introduced herself as ‘Abbi,’ first of all, and even  _ hearing _ someone say her full name made her cringe.

And two: if anyone had seen the life Abbi had been forced to endure the last six months, there was no way they’d have thought she was gone too soon. She’d suffered more in a half a year than in the fifty-seven full ones preceding it.

“Hey,” Wanda whispered, appearing at her elbow to squeeze her hand. “You holding up okay?”

Darcy blinked away the tears that were spiking in the corners of her eyes, not exactly eager to allow herself a good cry in front of the family who felt so much like strangers. Abbi’s sister Greta and Robert were easier - more secular than Jewish these days, like Darcy and like Abbi, they didn’t fuss as much over the  _ shiva _ cooking and the photos as Great-Aunt Leah, who’d taken the full burden of making food for the reception on herself.

She was thankful for them, of course. Her little cousin Noelle had somehow made her way to Darcy’s side at the funeral for the tearing of cloth, and there was something cloyingly sweet about how she’d slipped her small, pudgy fingers into Darcy’s free hand while she split the delicate fabric of her blouse. Maybe it was because she’d given Darcy something to do, to make her feel a little less helpless through it all.

“I’m alright. I just...wish I could skip to the part where it stops feeling like a show. You know?”

Wanda bit her lip and nodded, giving Darcy’s hand another squeeze. She remembered standing toward the back of the procession from the synagogue to the cemetery when Pietro had died, Wanda so far away, squished between her parents. She remembered wanting to hold Wanda’s hand the way she was now, and not being able to get close to her for hours. They were supposed to be so much older now, but with her mother’s living room full of distant relatives and old friends of Abbi’s that Darcy’d barely known, she was feeling a lot like that fourteen-year-old girl again, round-faced and lost.

She leaned her head on Wanda’s shoulder, ready to think of something else. “You got any crazy summer plans to get away from the little tiny ones?”

“Mm...probably running up to the city to see a few friends, when I get the chance. College friends.” Wanda lifted her hand to gently scratch her nails through Darcy’s scalp. “You should think about taking a vacation soon. When everything winds down.”

She closed her eyes, willing the steady beat in her temples to slow to a stop. The buzz of her guests in mourning continued. “I can’t. I’ve got a lot of writing to do. Carol managed to push back my deadline to November, on bereavement, but I haven’t even got...a twinkle of an idea for the next book.”

When she opened her eyes, Wanda was giving a sympathetic grimace. “You ever tell any of your family you’re Daria Vogelsong?”

Darcy shrugged, watching over the bustle of the crowd. As little as she knew of so many of her own flesh and blood, there was something nice about watching the distant cousins perch themselves around Abbi’s coffee table to eat hard-boiled eggs and catch up on life. “Greta knows. If anyone asks, I tell them I write articles sometimes, which isn’t  _ technically _ lying.”

She’d had a few opinion pieces published in Ms. and The New Yorker over the years. But using the Daria Vogelsong alias, even for signings, kept maintaining her privacy a lot easier, especially once her  _ Reckless Silke _ series blew up. Especially once Abbi had gotten her diagnosis.

Carol Danvers arrived about an hour after the burial with a lemon and lavender cake, and, in between wishes of a long life and  _ besorot tovot _ in the future from the family, snuck into Abbi’s pantry to mix a tray of gin and tonics for her, Darcy, and Wanda.

“Anything else I can do for you, babe?” she asked, pushing the dark curls out of Darcy’s face.

“I mean, at this point, it’s probably too late to ask for a cure for cancer, right?” she said miserably, trying hard to keep something of a smile on her face while she lifted her glass to her lips.

Carol offered a halfhearted tug of the corners of her lips. “I want to take you out for dinner tomorrow. Both of you. And your aunt and uncle, if they’ll join us.”

Darcy had to swallow the sob that had suddenly bubbled at the back of her throat, her eyes prickling with tears that wouldn’t be blinked away this time. “Thank you, Carol. Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I...why it just…”

“You’re crying because you love your mother, Darcy,” Carol said, softly and evenly, brushing her tears away from her eyes. “And it’s really fucking hard not to have her here anymore.” She framed Darcy’s face with her hands, brushing the tears from her cheeks with her thumbs, her voice lowering to a whisper. “And you’ve been pushing yourself to stay strong for as long as I’ve known you, so maybe you can let yourself be sad every once in a while.”

“I know that,” she said, not believing herself. The lump in her throat betrayed everything she meant to say, meant to feel, and now the family was putting on their concerned faces, the ones that she so hated having trained on her. She scrubbed away the last of the wet on her face with her knuckles.

Carol kissed her on the forehead. “You want me to schmooze with your folks while you clean up a little?”

“Yes, please,” she mumbled. Wanda trailed her to the bathroom to hold a cold, damp towel to the puffy bags under her eyes. “I feel like such an idiot.”

“You shouldn’t.” Wanda’s hands were a lot steadier than her own. She took the eyeliner from the drawer under the sink and started to redraw the lines that she’d done on Darcy before they left the house, with all the mirrors swathed with black. “You will grieve at times that feel appropriate and times that don’t. You’ll...go a year without crying and then, in your car on the way to work, it’ll be like she died yesterday.”

Darcy sucked in a long, deep breath, and exhaled it slowly, wishing that she could find something honest to tell everyone who offered their condolences, when all she wanted to do was run up the stairs to her mother’s bedroom and bury her face into her pillow until the house was empty. But with Wanda’s hand on her back, she lifted her head high, forced her chin to stop its wobble, and pushed the bathroom door open.

A not particularly short three hours later, she was left with Greta, Robert, Wanda, and Carol. Darcy and Greta passed the gin back and forth, their taste buds long since burned out, while Carol helped Robert finish the last of the cleanup. Abbi’s favorite playlist still beat on softly in the speakers positioned around the house, an oldie about someone’s first love floating languorously to the ceiling. Greta held Darcy’s hand tight across the table, hiccups bubbling from her chest every few moments.

“I’m so glad we only see Leah at weddings and funerals,” Greta sighed, sliding her stiff black espadrilles off her feet. “That woman means well, but fuck, she’s overbearing.”

Darcy snorted, and set the bottle down away from her with a dull thunk on the counter. “Don’t even mention weddings around her. When she got here, she gave me the once-over, realized how old I was and that I didn’t have a date, and started fawning over this nice boy at her temple, this nice, smart, handsome,  _ reliable _ boy, who could  _ use _ a good wife.”

Greta rolled her eyes. “Gag me with a spoon. I’m pretty sure it’s that lawyer she knows in Pittsburgh, the one getting a divorce.”

“Yikes. Jesus, do I just  _ scream _ emotional baggage to her?” She slid the small remnants of Carol’s cake across the table toward herself, digging into the crumbs with one of the last cocktail forks in the box. “I’d hate to think what she’d say if she knew what my real job is.”

Robert’s head popped up from over the railing between the dining room and the living room, a mischievous smirk on his face. “I bet she reads  _ Reckless Silke _ in private. And by private, I mean sitting on top of the dryer, because lord knows she ain’t gettin’ no pleasure from her man,” he sang in his best impression of a Southern beauty queen, wagging his hips at Carol, who snorted.

“I’ve been a girls’ girl my whole life, Rob. That’s why I’m very rarely disappointed.” And part of why she was such a good agent for a romance novelist. She could weed out good smut, could pick the right publisher that would be taken seriously because it didn’t promote rapey, incesty, or jackhammery overtones with the authors and books they published.

“Speaking of,” Darcy attempted to say, muffled by the cake in her mouth, “how’s Maria holding up with you all the way out here for the next few days?”

Carol smiled, yanking a plastic garbage bag out of its bin to toss out with the rest of the trash to be collected in the morning. “She texted me a couple hours ago. The only weekend I leave, she decides to make jambalaya for the house. Monica’s been Snapchatting me to rub it in.”

“Your stepdaughter has you on Snapchat?” Wanda asked, falling into the chair beside Darcy to join her at the cake. “You’re lucky, Carol, I could never be on social media with my mom. Outside, like...Facebook. Where all the old people dwell.”

“Watch it with the old talk.” Greta poured herself another gin and tonic to go with her grumble. “Not all the middle-aged on Facebook post nonstop Minions memes, we use our powers for good sometimes.” She turned her eyes, glassy by this point, toward Darcy. “Even your mom…”

But before she could finish her thought, Robert very unsubtly cleared his throat from the living room, scratching at the back of his neck. Everyone’s eyes burned into him, successfully turning him beet red. 

“Somethin’ to share with the rest of the class, Mr. Jameson?” Darcy asked, not really meaning it or worried about it. Whatever her mom had been up to on Facebook could wait until the booze had left her system. She leaned her head back over the headrest of her chair, letting her hair tumble down from her ponytail.

“Ah, he’s right,” Greta cut in with a clink of her half-emptied glass on the table. “Don’t mind my drunk ramblin’. I heard talk about dinner tomorrow, Carol?”

“On me,” Carol sang, falling into an empty seat once she’d tossed the last trash bag. She sighed and kicked her feet into Wanda’s lap. “What’s good around here?”

Greta and Wanda started to argue over the old-fashioned pizza parlor with the checkerboard table cloth that Greta had loved when she was a girl growing up, and the very greasy, 1990s arcade game-laden pizza place where Wanda and Darcy had spent most of their Friday afternoons in high school. Darcy leaned back in her chair, covering her smile with her last gin and tonic.

She remembered plenty of nights like this, with different combinations of these people sat at these same chairs around this same table. The only missing element was Abbi’s sympathetic bustling, her theatrical gait around the table as she plopped down popcorn, chicken soup, hot chocolate, coffee, tea, for whoever was assembled there. Darcy’s hand fell to the pendant on her chest, her thumb running absently over the silver curves of her mother’s necklace.

“Let’s get Thai,” Darcy cut in suddenly, pushing her chair back. The wooden legs creaked unpleasantly against the floor, but she was too tired to register this, too tired to flinch. She picked up the half-drunk gin bottle and made her way back to the pantry to set it on the top shelf. “My mom’s favorite place is down on Mulberry. What better way to celebrate her, you know?”

Carol smiled diplomatically, joining Darcy on her feet. “Thai sounds like a great idea.”

“Greta and I have to hold visiting hours for the out-of-town relatives and friends during the day, but let’s plan for seven?” She slid the last piece of cake onto a paper plate and wrapped it in plastic, successfully draining the last bit of energy she had for today. “Meet here and carpool? That way I can foist some of the food everybody brings on you when you take me home.”

Carol wrapped her arms around her, squeezing her tighter than should be humanly possible. “Perfect plan. And if you want me to come over early and putz around while you sit through family, text me, yeah?”

“Perfect plan,” Darcy echoed, pulling away with a kiss to Carol’s cheek. “Love you.”

“Love you.”

Greta peppered gin-flavored kisses to her forehead, both cheeks, the top of her head. “I’ll see you in the morning, sweet girl.”

About a half an hour later, after she had showered again and assured Wanda for what felt like the hundredth time that she was okay, that she could sleep alone, Darcy crawled into Abbi’s sheets, letting her head drift into the pillow that smelled like her mother. She curled her hand around Abbi’s comforter and brought it to her cheek. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend it was a year ago, pretend she’d just come home from promoting the latest book and couldn’t bear not to sleep by her momma’s side.

She lasted another twenty minutes to feel the telltale dip of her mother’s weight into the mattress beside her before texting Wanda.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, swallowing hard, but not hard enough to keep her eyelashes from stinging with tears. “I gotta learn how to sleep alone again someday.”

Wanda squeezed her hand. “Lucky for you, someday doesn’t have to be today.”

Darcy mustered up a smile and pressed her lips to Wanda’s knuckles. “Sleep tight, Wanda-Rama.”

“Sleep tight, Darcy-Lew.”

She kept her eyes closed until the gentle rhythm of Wanda’s breath had slowed, soft snores splitting through the air between them. She hadn’t listened to anyone sleep so soundly without worrying they wouldn’t wake up in a long while. And then, rolling onto her back, Darcy lay in her mother’s bed with the ache of finality in her chest that confirmed the truth she already knew.

Abbi was gone. No more suffering, no more pain, no more late night panics, or waiting for the other shoe to drop. Abigail Lewis was gone, and not a moment too soon.

* * *

A few of her cousins, the more secular ones who lived farther away, visited the next day with more food than Darcy would ever hope to eat on her own. Most of them didn’t stay too long - after a cup of coffee or tea, they’d hug their goodbyes, or give her and Greta a warm handshake, and be on their way. While Wanda had busied herself with folding a fresh batch of laundry, Darcy’s cousin Kathy lingered a little longer to share a plate of the lasagna she’d brought. 

They laughed over a story about Abbi when the two of them had been kids, had tried making Rice Krispie Treats and cleaning the floors so that when the adults got home, they’d have something nice to look forward to; Abbi nearly ate shit on the hardwood Darcy had scrubbed with dish soap and water.

“I never heard that story,” Greta mused, her chin in her hand.

“Wasn’t exactly my proudest moment,” Darcy grinned, crossing her legs and bringing probably her fifth cup of tea to her mouth. “We tried, though. We didn’t do great, but we tried.”

Kathy smiled back, running her fingers over her baby daughter Maddie’s small patch of thick, curly black hair. “She’s proud of you, you know. Always has been.”

She bit back the tears that rose up her neck with her blush. Greta tilted her head sympathetically. “I’m nothin’ special.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Kathy said back, as though it was second nature. “You always...kicked ass in school, always had the grandparents talkin’ about you...hell, even Leah thinks the sun shines out your ass, even if she doesn’t say so.” She laughed through her nose, shaking her head with a fond but sober smile. “I’ve read your Ms. articles. You got a lot to say, and a hell of a voice saying it.”

“Thank you.” She bowed her head, wanting to reach across the couch to squeeze Kathy’s hand, but settled for letting Maddie close her tiny hand around her finger. “God, I can’t believe she’s already a month. Your baby shower was like...yesterday.”

Kathy laughed. The gals she’d worked with had held a shower for her about four months back, in their favorite dive bar, of all places. It was a good time - everyone was very sweet, and Kathy had insisted they all partake while she couldn’t. Besides, most of the gifts they’d brought had contained those little booze bottles for once she’d “popped the sucker out.”

And now, instead of the burgeoning responsibility that came with a baby bump, she had in her lap the real thing: Maddie, small and sweet and perfect.

“You ever want one’a these?” Kathy asked, her fingernail to Maddie’s cheek. Maddie yawned a wide ‘o’ and leaned into her mother’s touch.

“I’unno. Think I’ll always be a better daughter than a mom.”

Kathy seemed to take it as a fine enough answer. Somewhere in her heart, in the spaces that had told her mother before the cancer was confirmed that she’d be home soon, that her career was important, that she couldn’t just drop everything for a misplaced hunch, Darcy wondered if she’d even been that decent of a daughter to begin with.

A few more cousins and hometown friends filed in and out. It seemed that there was a thirty-minute time limit to grief outside their small circle, or at least thirty minutes was the exact amount of time they’d felt right to spend sitting across from her and Greta. Everyone was kind, though - and nearly everyone who’d shared their kind words meant it. Abbi had been loved, as she deserved to be.

And, of this crowd at least, nobody called her Abigail. 

Carol arrived just before seven, in a smooth gray power suit and the cleanest red Converse high-tops Darcy had ever seen, and with a huge shopping bag in one hand.

“I got you something,” she said, before Darcy could ask, and thrust it into her hands. “If you...you know, if you wanna wear it tonight, no big deal.” Her cheeks went an uncharacteristic pink, and Darcy felt herself mirror Carol’s blush.

“Thank you, honey.” She let the bag hang at her side as she leaned back into Carol’s embrace, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

The dress in the shopping bag fit her perfectly, like she knew it would. Smooth and black and form-fitting, with lace across her chest and shoulders and a skirt that billowed out over her knees. Greta’s eyes widened and then smiled when Darcy stepped out of her bedroom and shrugged into a short denim jacket.

“You look so much like Abbi,” she sighed, and ran her thumb across her cheek. “Just beautiful, babe.”

The ride to Mulberry Street was short enough, with Wanda resting her head on one shoulder and Greta squeezing the other in the backseat of the SUV Carol had rented. Robert provided navigation from the front seat and argued over Carol’s choice in grunge bands. By the time the car pulled up in front of Sisuk’s, they’d come to the conclusion that, as long as they could both pay their respects to Nirvana, it was fine to agree to disagree.

Kanya Sisuk greeted Darcy and Wanda like old friends, offering her sincerest condolences with a hand pressed to her own heart. She seated them at an empty table near the back of the restaurant, away from the other patrons where they could have the space they needed.

“Thank you guys,” Darcy said, once the noodles and curry and coconut soup had been passed around and picked at. “For being here, for being here for me.” She fingered her chopstick, pushing a bell pepper across her plate. “I...I know I wasn’t always...there for my mom when she needed me - ”

“Darcy.” Greta covered her hand, lacing her fingers between Darcy’s and squeezing. “You came through for her. She saw how hard you worked to take care of her.”

Darcy swallowed, feeling her eyes begin to prickle again. “I just wish I’d come through for her sooner. Wish we had...more time.”

“The thing is, honey,” Greta began, her voice quaking, as she reached into her purse hanging over the back of her chair, “she thought so, too.”

She handed Darcy an old-school tape recorder and an envelope. Everyone met her eyes, with confusion and curiosity, before she pressed her finger to the play button.

_ “Hi, Darcy-Lew.” _ Abbi’s voice was unmistakable, as weak and grainy as the tape might have recorded it.  _ “I’m sorry to spring this on you this way, but I didn’t want to leave you the way it looks like I’m going to. So this is me, your momma, from beyond the grave.” _

Abbi chuckled, and the rest of the table couldn’t help but chuckle a little with her.

_ “I know that we didn’t get the kind of time we’d hoped to at the end, and there’s so much I have left to show you. So much still that you deserve to know. So I’m pulling a ‘P.S. I Love You.’ Over the next few months, you’ll be receiving letters from me in some...weird way of helping you have a hold on me and letting me go at the same time. I hope we can both get a little closure out of this, and I hope there might be some answers that I and the people you meet during the next few months might be able to give you. _

_ “In the first envelope is a travel itinerary for a trip I hope you’ll take after sitting shiva at the house. Don’t worry about the house, by the way - my lawyer has the details to carry out my will once you’ve gotten all the letters. Until then, I’ve asked Rebecca to stay at my place while you’re gone. _

_ “Anyway, the trip. I’m sorry that I won’t be sending you off to some tropical resort, but Emerald Bridges, Connecticut holds a special place in my heart. It’s where I went to school. It’s where I fell in love. It’s where I made you.” _

Darcy’s head snapped up, her heart stuttering in her chest. But Abbi continued.

_ “It’s gross, I know. I’m sending you to the place that I met your father and got to know him on a biblical level. Ha. Biblical. We’re Jewish.” _

Everyone laughed again. Everyone except Darcy.

_ “All jokes aside, though, what I hope for you - what I hope for us on this trip, is closure. I hope that it helps you remember how much I love you, how much you mean to me, my sweet girl. Because wherever I am, wherever that may be, I will love you to the end of time. I could not be more proud of the woman you have grown to become, with or without Ms. Vogelsong. _

_ “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Darcy-Lew. Thank you for being the light of my life.” _

The tape ended there, on the soft crack of Abbi’s voice growing tearful. Darcy slipped her hand out of her aunt’s to press her napkin to her eyes, her nose, as she felt both lips begin to wobble. Greta threaded her fingers into Darcy’s hair, as if to coax the tears and the pain out of her.

The truth was, she didn’t know what to feel. Shock, naturally. The stabs of grief that were starting to feel like they’d never end, anger at having big things like this hidden from her, guilt and annoyance at herself for knowing that she might have found out the big things had she not brushed her mom’s concerns off as long as she had. Mostly just missing the way that Abbi’s arms felt around her, the smell of her perfume mixing with her shampoo, the telltale press of her lips to Darcy’s part.

When she’d lifted her face from the cloth napkin, certain that everyone’s eyes were on her, which they were, she swallowed the rest of her tears and pasted on a half-smile.

“Well...it looks like next week I’m going to Emerald Bridges, Connecticut.”


	2. out of sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy arrives in Emerald Bridges.

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.” -George Bernard Shaw, _Immunity_

“Sometimes the best we can do is to remind each other that we’re related for better or for worse...and try to keep the maiming and killing to a minimum.” -Rick Riordan, _The Sea of Monsters_

* * *

_Ten Days After_

The cool window of the traincar pressed against her skin, Darcy watched as the East Coast golden-tinted trees flashed by outside, jostling with every few bumps of the tracks beneath her. She flicked her wrist inward to check her watch - just about four in the afternoon. As soon as she found the bed and breakfast Abbi had booked for her, she’d be able to check in.

The last few days had gone by surprisingly fast. Carol had returned to Louisiana two days after their dinner, having very gently made Darcy promise to work on at least a couple of chapters of something new, _Silke_ -related or not, at some point before November.

Wanda had stayed with her in Abbi’s house after her shifts at the preschool were over. She, Greta, and Robert were the ones to send her off at the train station, with hopeful and tearful wishes of good luck.

“You sure you’re gonna be okay?” Wanda had swept her tongue over her thumb before pressing it to Darcy’s forehead to pin down a stray eyebrow hair. Darcy winced, leaning away from the offending digit.

“Got everything. Wallet, ID, laptop, clean underwear - will you _stop_?” Wanda had reached out again with a wet thumb, this time dropping it with a pout. “I promise, Wan. I’m gonna be fine. My mom planned everything with...a freaky precision. You’ll be there with me in a few weeks anyway.”

“Still. You text me if you need _anything_ , right?”

Darcy offered the pinky that wasn’t occupied by the handle of her suitcase. Wanda locked hers with it, her eyes soft and earnest. “I promise. As long as you don’t run off and find a new best friend while I’m gone.”

Wanda snorted. “Impossible. You don’t get to find a new best friend in Connecticut either, though, alright?”

“Duh.” She grabbed her sister-in-arms by the cheeks and planted a kiss on her forehead. “I love you. Always, always, always, Wanda-Rama.”

When she pulled away, Wanda scrubbed her tears with her knuckles. “I love you, Darcy-Lew.”

Now, as the train approached its last stop in the small college town of Emerald Bridges, Darcy fished through her pocket for her phone to tap out a text: _Train’s getting in now. Might go out adventuring after check-in. Will let you know when I’m in for the night._

The conductor’s smooth voice came over the speakers above just as she hit send. “Last and final stop coming up, Emerald Bridges is the end of the line. Last and final stop, Emerald Bridges.”

Darcy lugged herself out of her seat first, then yanked her heavy suitcase out of its place and clunked it down the stairs behind her toward the sliding exit doors. The conductor of this car nodded politely at her, wearing the familiar kind of smile that indicated he’d been working this job since the beginning of time.

“You from outta town?” he drawled, his dark eyes flickering to her suitcase at her hip.

“Yessir.” She reached her arms over her head in a prolonged stretch, her bag sliding down to the crease of her elbow. “Needed a change of scenery.”

He nodded again, and adjusted the cap that fit snugly over his thick curls. “You’ll have a fine time. Folks around here are plenty friendly, be happy to tell you all the best places to visit.”

She sucked her lower lip between her teeth. “You sound like you know the area okay.”

The brakes of the train screeched beneath them, the air hissing as the depot came into view outside. The conductor tightened his grip on the handrail between them and waited until the brakes had come to a complete and silent stop before answering. “I’ve been a few times. Why you ask?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find the Pegasus Inn, would you?”

A sweet smile lit up his whole face, and when the exit doors slid open, he leaned out with her to point to the tall brick building at the end of the cobblestone street. Sure enough, when she squinted she could spot a small, weathered wooden sign with the faint shape of a winged horse on it. “I believe that’s the one.”

As the doors slid closed again, to return the train to wherever trains went to sleep, Darcy got out as much of an enthusiastic “thank you!” as she could muster. The conductor tipped his hat, like a gentleman in a black-and-white film, and the long train whistles that followed drowned out anything else she might have said.

The walk to the bed and breakfast her mother had booked was short but sweaty in the Emerald Bridges humidity. Darcy would have slowed to gawk at the buildings that might have been plucked from a Hallmark movie set, with their colonial brick and the maple-leafed trees that hugged them tight, if she weren’t hankering for a shower immediately.

The lobby bell jingled as Darcy shouldered her way in, a sigh of relief escaping her with the air conditioning that kissed her skin. A dark-haired head popped up from behind the front desk, followed by the rest of the pretty young woman whom it belonged to. She smiled a relaxed smile, leaning on her forearms and not looking terribly frazzled from whatever had gone on under the desk.

“Welcome,” she said breathlessly, at the same time that Darcy said, “Are you okay?”

They looked at each other for a second, before the girl let loose a chuckle. “Sorry, I…” She glanced toward the staircase to her left before leaning in and whispering conspiratorially: “there’s this bitchy guest who’s just realized she’s staying in an old hotel, and she demanded I find a record of some ghost who allegedly haunts the room that she requested.”

Darcy’s gaze flickered down to her empty hands. “Did you...find it?”

She shrugged. “I was gonna hide for a while to pretend I was looking it up and then just tell her I couldn’t find it, but if she’d _actually_ done her research, she’d know the files she’s looking for burned up in, like, 1924.”

“You know a lot about this place.”

“I should. My aunt bought the place when I was ten, made me start workin’ here when I was twelve.” She nodded at Darcy’s suitcase, reminding her of how sweaty and uncomfortable she was. “Checking in?”

“Yeah, uh, Darcy Lewis? Or, if not Darcy Lewis, Abbi Lewis?”

The girl clicked through an ancient looking computer for a second, then raised her narrowed eyes to Darcy’s with her mouth in a thin line. “Darcy Lewis. Like the writer?”

A flush filled the back of her neck. This girl looked a little young to know Daria Vogelsong novels. “Uh...yeah?”

Michelle, according to the gold-plated name tag above her heart, cocked her head to the side with a smirk. “I dug your op-ed piece on the Kavanaugh hearings. That guy can eat a dick.” As casually as if she hadn’t noted it at all, she went back to clicking through the computer. “Your stay’s paid for, but I’m gonna need your ID and a card for incidentals.”

She fingered through her wallet for her license and a credit card that she mostly used for hotel stays, and slid it across the counter. “Sorry, you said the - the _whole_ thing is paid for?”

“Yup. Two months with us. Looks like I’ll have plenty of time to pick your brain about politics, if you’re ever bored enough to come hang in the lobby,” Michelle grinned. She made a copy of Darcy’s ID and card, slid them back across the counter, and then offered her the reservation contract to sign off on. “All the basic stuff here. Technically if you have any overnight guests you’re supposed to pay the night for the extra person, but if you do have anyone over I won’t tell.”

Ha. Not likely.

“You’re in Room 12 on the third floor. We have a super basic breakfast bar from six to ten, plated breakfast from seven to nine if you’re up by then. Cocktail hour is five to seven in the evening, but the bar is open until midnight if you wanna pay for a drink. Laundry room is on the second floor, Wifi info should be on the card under the TV in your room...I feel like I’m forgetting something, but that’s what I’ve got for you so far.”

Darcy nodded, accepting the old-school, Bates Motel-y room key Michelle set on the granite in front of her. “Super helpful. I’ll probably take you up on politics talk later, after I’m, like...not all greasy and sweaty and shit. Thanks so much. And, uh, good luck with that bitchy guest.”

Michelle flashed her another laidback smile. “Thanks. See you around.”

One very brief and slightly rickety elevator ride later (she’d be taking the stairs next time), Darcy shouldered open the door to room 12, ready to drop her bags and leap headfirst into the shower. She had her hand on the doorknob before realizing that another envelope lay in wait for her on the bed.

Well, now that she’d seen it, it wasn’t like she could just shower without reading it first.

_Darcy,_

_Welcome to Emerald Bridges! If you’re reading this, then it looks like you’ll be working on your next big project at the Pegasus Inn for a couple of months. Maybe this crazy little town will even inspire you in its own magical little ways._

_I want you to be able to explore the way you want, but I also want to make sure that you don’t spend the next two months holed up here writing. I get the feeling you’ll find your way around town once you get settled, but tonight, I’ll be kind of giving you a push. You have dinner reservations at Come On Inn (it’s right down the main street!) at 6:00 tonight. It’s definitely nothing fancy, don’t stress out, but I thought you might as well have a good dinner on your first night here._

_And the_ _real_ _real truth is...Come On Inn is where I met your dad the first time. I know we never talked about him much. Not because he was a dick or anything, but just because we met at a time in our lives that...wasn’t meant to be._

_I was finishing school, waiting tables, couldn’t wait to be in bigger, better places. This place was home for him. We had a short winter together before I graduated and headed out on my own. I didn’t know I was pregnant with you until I’d already moved into my first apartment - the place we lived when you were a kid._

_And in case you’re worried, and I’m pretty sure you are, you won’t run into him in town. I found out a few years back that he was in a bad car accident and passed away. This was around the same time that you started making a big name for yourself, and part of the reason that I pulled away from you a little bit then. I didn’t want to hurt you with what I’d found out, but I had a hard time figuring out how I even felt about it. I’m sorry for not being more open with you when I should have been._

_I know I’m ending this letter a bit more bittersweetly than you might have expected. I want to give you all the happy things I can from beyond the grave, but not everything I have for you is happy. It’s real, and it’s me, and it’s all stuff that you deserve to know._

_You’re going to find out things about me and about us that might hurt. But you’re all I have left, babygirl. You get me, warts and all._

_And hopefully, you’ll get a little more than that._

_I love you always,_ _  
_ _Mom_

The letter was typed, but there, at the bottom, in the big scrawling print that Abbi had always used, M-O-M had been scratched into the paper with a slightly shaky hand. Darcy pressed her fingers to the lettering; if she closed her eyes, she could imagine Abbi’s perfume, could pretend that this one small physical connection brought her mother back, if only for a second.

She opened her eyes to an empty room and hid her tears from herself in the shower.

* * *

The Come On Inn was a cozy little establishment, nothing fancy, like Abbi had said, with vinyl booths and a jukebox that played nothing that had come out before 1975. When she scrolled through the menu on her phone after taking her much-needed shower, she found spiked milkshakes among the usual diner fare, and a cajun turkey burger that was calling her name. She’d given up on doing more with her hair than blow drying it and brushing it into a messy braid, and left her makeup in her suitcase.

The bitchy customer must have been the short blonde woman with both elbows on the front desk, peeking over to Michelle’s side of the counter to see if she was hiding whatever documents she’d been looking for. Michelle snuck Darcy an exasperated eye-roll and a half-shrug.

On her way down main street, the many hanging flower pots and vines crawling up the brick walls smiled out like greeters, calling out to passersby with promises of every store’s contents: _pan dulce here! Come get your conchas and pan dulce! Comic books! See this week’s superhero face his mortal enemy for the last time! Opal necklaces, turquoise earrings, chunky rose quartz bracelets!_

She passed a tea shop with a bead curtain and oversized tarot cards in the window, across from it a computer repair store the size of a water closet with a gigantic pink neon sign mounted toward the top. The store that most caught her eye, very predictably, was one across the street next door to the panadería, with a large wooden sign above the open door shaped like the pages of a book, the words painted across in black-ringed gold: _The Emerald Bridges Bookshop_.

It was a good thing Darcy had two months to explore this place. She had a feeling she’d end up spending a lot of time perusing what looked like richly packed bookshelves.

At the very end of the street sat the Come On Inn, at the head of the T intersection. When she pushed through the door, the bell overhead jingled sweetly. 

“Hi,” she said to the man behind the counter, his smile creasing his face like he was born to wear it. “Uh...I have a reservation for Darcy?”

“Oh, good - well, welcome to Come On Inn, we’ve got your booth over here.” He tucked a red vinyl menu under his arm and led her down the rows of checkered tile. 

Darcy glanced around. It wasn’t quite bustling: a couple of teenage boys sat at one table, textbooks open between them while they picked at their fries and milkshakes; a tall, elegant blonde woman, her hand laced through her date’s, a broad-shouldered man with a closely shaven buzzcut; a small family of three, the dark haired man in his oil-stained t-shirt and jeans cooing and making faces at the baby in its carrier as the mother in her pressed suit watched on, a combination of amusement and secondhand embarrassment on her face.

He was leading her past empty booths, all the way to the back corner, where a slight woman with light brown hair seemed to be waiting for something. “She just got here a couple minutes ago,” the host explained, as if that were the answer to all Darcy’s questions.

When the woman noticed them, she put down her menu and the cup of coffee she’d been nursing, glanced up at Darcy, and got to her feet with what looked like an anxious smile. 

Before Darcy could ask the host what the hell exactly was going on, he’d already nodded politely, turned on his heel, and headed back for the counter. 

“Darcy?” the woman said, thrusting her hand between them. “Uh, my name’s Jane. Jane Foster.”

“Hi…” Darcy shook it, not taking her seat when she let go. “Um...do I know you?”

Jane’s cheeks filled with color. Her amber eyes flitted down to the table, and, to Darcy’s surprise, she slid a long white envelope from between the pages of her menu. With Abbi’s handwriting on it. 

“No, but I...well, I guess I’m your half-sister.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "out of sight" by Run the Jewels. Bonus points for anyone who can identify the diner guests ;)


	3. something's gotta give

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy gets to know Jane.

“Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on.” -China Mieville,  _ Embassytown _

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.” -Anais Nin

* * *

_ Ten Days After _

Darcy blinked at the envelope. In the time it had taken for the young woman to slide her finger through the already broken seal, Darcy forgot how to breathe. Forgot how to speak, very nearly forgot her own name. A half-sister. One that Abbi knew about.  _ How? _

“Um...are you...positive?” Even the question sounded stupid, like a slapdash assortment of sounds that had somehow morphed themselves into words that barely had reason or rhyme or meaning at all. She felt herself deflate into the seat across from Jane, if only because her legs were no longer capable of holding her upright.

“Well, not like, ‘your mom snuck into your room while you were sleeping and stole your spit and your hair for a DNA test’ positive.” Jane grimaced, looping her finger through the handle of her coffee mug. “But...she and my mom kind of connected through some town Facebook group, and got to talking, and...they apparently both slept with the same guy here approximately nine to ten months before each of us was born. And seeing as my mom’s only ever slept with women since then…”

Jane stretched her hand out across the table, her teeth baring down on her lower lip. She pushed Darcy the envelope, which did not contain another typed letter from Abbi.

Instead, a small stack of screenshotted Facebook messages between Abbi and a woman named Miranda Foster with a small, bright yellow Post-It stuck to the front.

_ Jane + Darcy, _

_ Hope to give you both another shoulder to lean on. Forgive me. _

Darcy eyed the back and forth messages, her heart dipping into her stomach. In her mother’s browser, beneath Miranda’s name, read the small tagline: MENTOR, SURVIVOR AT BREAST HEALTH SUPPORT FOUNDATION IN CONNECTICUT.

“Is your mom…?”

“She’s recovered,” Jane said firmly, sliding her hands back down to her lap. “Complete remission for the last...four years, I think.”

Darcy forced a smile, swallowing down the lump in her throat. Here it was, her father’s name, a picture of him, grinning, with his arm slung around her mother, and another woman he had loved before Abbi. Had he cheated on her? Had he been much older than her? Was this the only other family that he had?

They sat in silence for the next few minutes, only the gentle hubbub of the diner bustling in the background as Darcy took in the paragraphs-long messages her mother and Miranda had sent back and forth.

His name was Randal Smith. In Abbi’s picture, wrapped in a geometric windbreaker and what looked like puffy ski pants, a rich laugh on his lips as he rested one arm over Abbi’s shoulders and clutched his stomach with the other. Abbi looked so young - for a fleeting moment the picture reminded Darcy of Lloyd and Diane from  _ Say Anything _ \- and then it made sense why she’d been a steadfast fan of John Cusack for as long as Darcy could remember.

In Miranda’s picture, Randal was a bit younger, wearing a black suit and tie, and maintained with his arched eyebrow an odd air of clumsy suaveness. The white roses blossoming on his jacket and the bust of Miranda’s dress told Darcy they’d been prom dates; known each other since high school.

“Mom didn’t want to feel tied to him because of a baby,” Jane said softly, and gingerly lifted her coffee cup to her lips once more. “She moved to the city for a couple years, until I was about four, and then came back to see if...if he wanted to be a part of my life.”

“Wow.” Darcy choked on the word, wanting to ask a question that she felt like she already half-knew the answer to.

“We had lunch every couple of years. I didn’t call him Dad. I don’t think he...I dunno, I don’t think he was ready to be one. As far as I know, he never really...settled down. One day, I found out that he’d died, and I was sad, and…” She shrugged, her eyes directed into the depths of her mug. “He wasn’t  _ like _ a dad, was the thing. He was like this...distant uncle. Because my mom was always enough.”

Well, yeah, Darcy wanted to say, so was hers. But Jane had at least  _ known _ him. Jane had at least  _ known _ where she’d come from, it didn’t have to be this big, heavy surprise.

“I’m sorry,” she heard herself say, backing away from the table and the prints, until her head gently thwacked against the vinyl of the booth. “I don’t -  _ why _ did she think I needed to know this?”

She’d been happy with Abbi. No matter how imperfect either of them were, no matter how far away she’d felt from her mother from time to time, her dad had never had to be a factor in their lives, in their relationship. Why now, when all she could do was mourn him and resent him and never have the choice to hope for anything more?

It was only when Jane passed her a napkin that she realized she’d been crying, snot bubbling out of her left nostril in a terribly attractive way, in front of the woman she was only just finding out was her half-sister. She took it, with a half-hearted thanks, and closed her eyes as she blew into it.

“I’m sorry,” Jane echoed, folding her hands on the table in front of her. “I don’t...I don’t expect you to like hearing this, or want us to be best friends, or anything, but…” She drew in a deep inhale, and suddenly Darcy could see the sympathy clear and real on her face. “...I know your mom loved you, and I know you have to be missing her now. And I think she wanted me to - well, I wanted to be here. If you...you know, if you need me.”

For a brief moment, Darcy had a flash of denial - what if Jane knew who she was? What if this was some elaborate ruse, some play at a mythical pile of money that Darcy didn’t have? It was easy to Photoshop online interactions - what if Jane was really some kind of master Photoshop forger, ruthless enough to put on this kind face to get Darcy’s guard down?

She swallowed again, pressing her finger to the impression the pen had made in the envelope, the very real impression of Jane’s name in the paper. And then, tracing the handwriting on the Post-It, the looping Os the same kind that she’d left on little notes in Darcy’s lunchbox when she was in elementary school.

“Okay,” Darcy managed, and set the envelope with all its papers back down beside the menu, the watch on her wrist thudding dully as it met the table. “I guess...there’s really no point trying to say we’re not who we say we are. Um...I don’t think I really  _ want  _ a sister or...need one, but…” She drew in another deep inhale, willing her stomach to stop jumping. “I’m willing to try friends.”

Jane smiled a gentle and slightly wobbly sort of smile. “I can try to do friends.”

Darcy chewed slowly on the inside of her cheek, then flipped open her menu with a single finger. “Well...do you know what’s good here?”

Jane’s smile grew slightly less wobbly. “I don’t know about you, but...I’m a big fan of the Cajun turkey burger.”

This seemed to be as far as their similarities extended. Jane was an astrophysicist, had spent the last few months acting as a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, and preferred her coffee black, like a serial killer. She had been raised in New York City, but during a gap year between college and grad school, when Miranda had started to get sick, she and Jane moved back to be closer to her grandparents. It had been Jane’s part-time home since then.

Darcy sipped at her bourbon-spiked s’mores milkshake. “And your mom’s still in the area, too?”

Jane nodded. “She lives here, commutes to the foundation in Hartford Monday through Thursday. She doesn’t drive anymore, so either Trish or I take her to the train station.” Darcy noticed the way she rolled her eyes and turned up her lips at the mention of Trish.

“And Trish is…?”

She sighed. “My mom’s latest girlfriend. She’s, uh...a little younger than me.”

Darcy grimaced sympathetically. “And you’re not excited about that.”

“I mean, would you be?” Jane fiddled with the handle of her coffee mug, going quiet for a moment, realizing that she’d shared something perhaps too intimate with this stranger-sister across the table from her. “It’s not that there’s anything  _ wrong _ with Trish, and she makes my mom happy...but it’s weird.”

“Of course,” Darcy said, because she knew it was the kind of thing Jane likely wanted to hear. “Like, it could have been you who dated her, almost.”

“Pretty much.” Jane’s tongue poked into the corner of her cheek. “But she’s not exactly my type.”

“Yeah?” Darcy smiled, swiping her French fry through a puddle of ketchup on her plate. “What’s your type, then?”

“Smart.” She paused, making eye contact with Darcy, and they both snorted. “No, Trish isn’t  _ dumb _ , that’s not what I meant. I just think...I want to be with somebody who’s interested in similar things to me, somebody who complements me. She and I are just a little  _ too _ different.”

“So...someone who likes science?”

Jane shrugged and popped another fry into her mouth. “Someone I can talk to about stuff other than vinyasa yoga and open concept kitchens and the showbiz podcast she hosts. Someone who isn’t having sex with my mom.”

“Fair point,” Darcy chuckled, finally pushing her plate away from her as she leaned back into her booth, fully satisfied. “Well, I mean, I’m glad at least that she makes your mom happy. Sounds like your mom deserves something good.”

“Mhm,” Jane hummed. “What about you? You got a type?”

Darcy gave a sardonic smile. “Fictional, mainly. I kind of spend more time with my characters than any...potential dates.”

“Married to work. I know how that goes.” Jane raised her third cup of coffee to her lips again. “So it’s fiction you write, mainly? Anything I might’ve read?”

Darcy felt her cheeks go hot. “Well...I do some nonfiction op-ed pieces from time to time. Mainly trashy romance novels, mostly historical and fantasy.” She nodded her thanks to the waiter when he brought a pair of plastic to-go containers to their table and decided to bite the bullet. “Uh...right now I’ve been working on a historical romance series.  _ Reckless Silke _ .”

Jane’s eyes narrowed, but when Darcy didn’t budge, her mouth fell agape with a quiet scoff. “No fucking way.  _ You’re _ ...oh, what the hell’s the alias you use…”

“Daria Vogelsong,” Darcy finished, piling the other half of her turkey burger into her to-go box. “Part-time.” She watched her hands pinch close the lid on her leftovers, determined not to meet Jane’s shit-eating grin. “I can trust you not to tell  _ everybody  _ around town, right? I mean, I haven’t even been here a full day, I’m only operating on, like, four hours of sleep, and I’ve got another fifty-nine days in town...”

“Shit - no, Darcy, I won’t - I couldn’t tell anybody,” Jane said, and while she could have been a good actor, while she could have been baldly lying to Darcy’s face, something in the immediate change of tone from utter delight to utter solemnity, convinced Darcy that she was telling the real truth. “That’s your life. And if you don’t want anyone knowing...you know, our situation, that’s fine by me, too.”

Darcy smiled, chewing a little on the corner of her lip. Her throat had begun to feel heavy again, for what shouldn’t have been the umpteenth time. “Thank you, Jane.”

A subdued smile took over the rest of Jane’s face then. “And for what it’s worth, nobody knows I read  _ Reckless Silke _ , so, uh...if you wouldn’t mind keeping that to yourself, too. Not that it’s not good writing - just...my students are kind of under the impression all I read is Sagan. Kinda have a reputation to uphold.”

“Don’t worry, man. Your secret’s safe with me.”

Jane insisted on paying the check this time, which Darcy promised she’d pay back when they went out to lunch again. Before parting ways in front of an older, blue Subaru Outback coated in bumper stickers (including one which read “MY OTHER CAR IS THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE” in big white letters), they exchanged phone numbers - Darcy didn’t know when she’d text her again, when she’d had enough space to evaluate how the hell she felt about having a half-sister, but somewhere deep down, she knew they’d be in touch again soon.

She didn’t opt for a hug this time - they weren’t quite there yet - but Jane squeezed her hand with a fond firmness that betrayed her petite frame.

“You sure I can’t give you a ride back to the place you’re staying?”

Darcy shook her head. “Nah. The walk’ll do me some good. See you around, space lady.”

Without missing a beat, Jane said, halfway into her car, “see you around, fifty shades.”

* * *

“You have a  _ what _ ?”

Wanda’s voice nearly cracked when Darcy called her, sitting cross-legged in her pajamas on her bed at the Pegasus, the TV on low volume in the background so she could fall asleep to the latest trash reality show after she got off the phone.

“I have...a half-sister, who’s apparently an astrophysicist. I saw what my  _ dad _ looked like for the first time. Found out he died a couple of years ago, which my mom knew. And...kinda makes me wonder what other kinds of secrets she was keeping from me.”

She heard Wanda begin to say something and then stumble on her own tongue, which was pretty much the response she was expecting. There wasn’t a right way to answer this, or a right way to feel about it. Wanda had known Darcy and Abbi well for the last twenty years or so. A bombshell to Darcy would be the same to her - the first and only person, until today, that Darcy had thought of like a sister.

After a moment of silence, Wanda’s soft, gusty sigh came through the phone. “Well...is she at least nice?”

“Jane? Yeah, she’s...I mean, I’ve only spent about an hour with her. But yeah, I think...I like her okay.”

The truth was, Jane had every opportunity to be frighteningly intimidating. She was a few years older, extremely established in her field, a fucking  _ astrophysicist _ for Christ’s sakes. And she very well could have lorded her relationship with Randal over Darcy, could’ve lorded her intelligence over her before she’d known who exactly Darcy was, could’ve lorded the fact that she even knew Darcy was her sister over her. But she’d walked into the situation with kindness and an open heart. She’d let Darcy see her vulnerabilities, her insecurities - things with her mom and with Trish, her relationship with her students.

It made her that much more human.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Wanda was saying, and Darcy could imagine her pacing the floor in her apartment, the same floor where she and Darcy had shared boxes of Chinese takeout, binged damn near every episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, and occasionally put together little Lego sets that Wanda would superglue and display on her bookshelf in her bedroom. And even a few hours away from each other, Darcy missed her terribly.

Darcy sighed. “I’ll do my best not to, babe.” She flopped onto her back, studying the lumpy spots of white paint on the ceiling. “What’d you get up to today?”

“Mm, not a whole lot. Napped for a while, made some gazpacho, did a little lesson planning for the kids for next week. We’ve got a water theme next week, so I was trying to think of good things to watercolor outside of, like...fish.”

“What do you have against fish?”

“Kids make them look fucking horrifying. They give them...big eyes, and people teeth. Creepy as hell.”

Darcy coughed out an incredulous laugh. “That’s super fucking weird. Maybe teach them...not to do that?”

“I can’t just  _ make _ kids not be weird and paint creepy shit. I’m only trying to get them to creepily watercolor something else, I’m tired of dreaming of big-eyed human-toothed fish every year on ocean week.”

She rolled onto her stomach, a vivid image of Wanda exhaustedly fussing over a pile of ugly people-detailed fish bouncing into her head. Just the thought made her giggle. “Have them do starfish, and put googly eyes instead of drawing them on. Everything’s better with googly eyes.”

Wanda went quiet again, this time with a little less gravity than before. “Holy shit, you might be onto something. How did I not think of googly eyes?”

“It’s why you keep me around. I’m your idea guy.”

Someone on the TV threw a glass at someone else, the sound shattering Darcy back to her hotel room, where she realized that it was nearly eleven in Emerald Bridges, and save for about an hour of unsatisfying sleep on a bouncing train from west Pennsylvania, she’d been awake since maybe five this morning.

“How are you not more tired right now?” she asked Wanda, who seemed to be milling around her apartment for art supplies to create a master copy of her new non-creepy project.

“I told you, I napped earlier. Are you losing steam, old lady?”

Darcy began to scoff, but when her scoff turned into an unimpressive yawn, she leaned into the squishy pillow where her mother’s letter about her father had lain just this afternoon. Her heart swooped uncomfortably - and she realized now that she’d lost him and Abbi in one fell swoop.

“Yeah,” she said, hating how solemn her voice had gone. “I think I’m gonna go ahead and clock out.”

“Okay,” Wanda said, softly reflecting Darcy’s new quietness. “I love you, alright? Go do something fun for you tomorrow.”

“I will. I love you, too.”

When Darcy closed her eyes this time, she dreamed of a long, dimly lit dinner table. Abbi, Randal, Jane, and Miranda sat at the other end, laughing about something she couldn’t hear and telling secrets she couldn’t know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Something's Gotta Give" by Sammy Davis Jr.  
> Can you tell how thirsty I am always for Jeff Anderson aka *Randal* from the Kevin *Smith* classic Clerks?


	4. pennies from heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy on the town.

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

“If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” - Toni Morrison

* * *

_ Eleven Days After _

Darcy pursed her lips at the thin blinking line on her blank Word document, pretending that the harder she stared, the faster the right words might just...come to her. She’d been doing this for maybe the last thirty-five minutes, in between scrolling through her Instagram and clicking through Buzzfeed quizzes. According to her movie preferences, she ought to be eating Hot Cheetos right about now, and according to her snack preferences, she ought to be watching Sleepless in Seattle - for the record, it  _ was  _ one of her favorites, but she knew that she’d end up in tears by the time they even got to the first call with Dr. Marcia Fieldstone, and that wasn’t exactly how she wanted to start her day.

Ideally, she’d knock out five, maybe six pages of the next installment of  _ Reckless Silke _ , which she’d tentatively titled  _ A Study in Velvet _ (it was bad, she knew, but a bad something was better than a good nothing, at this point). Her plucky and headstrong and still somewhat insecure protagonist, Charlotte Silke, had just ended the last book leaving the estate of the man she’d thought she’d loved - the broodingly sexy Theodore Hudson, whose key flaw was his inability to be vulnerable with anyone, including Charlotte - on the horse she’d had since she was a teenager. She had long since become the Fallen Woman of her unforgiving Victorian society, poor and wandering and misbehaving, but there was still love to be had and historical dicks to be unsheathed.

And Darcy had no idea how to continue.

She thought about texting Wanda, and Carol, and even Jane, to get a hint of company that wasn’t the sixteen-year-old at the front desk who was both too cool and too young to really be Darcy’s friend, but as her phone lay face-up next to her mouse, she couldn’t make her fingers pad out the tell-tale  _ ‘Hey!’ _

Thankfully, her window overlooked the wide cobblestone street leading to the east, which made for good day planning. She could get plenty of writing done in the next fifty-eight days; maybe exploring would help kickstart her not-so-trusty muse.

With a quick glance to the slowly darkening skies, she slung her corduroy coat over her shoulder and ducked out the front door to visit as many little shops she could before it began to rain.

The goal of the day was to make it to the bookstore toward the end of the street, not too far from the Come On Inn. The obstacle was the plethora of shops between the hotel and the bookstore, each of which looked more appealing than the last.

The print shop immediately next door to the Pegasus was her first stop, filled with elegant stationery and scrapbook binders and packets of blank cards she could write her thank you notes in for all the family who’d left their condolences at Abbi’s memorial. There were only a few other patrons milling around the store, and the clerk behind the counter flashed a pleasant smile to greet Darcy as she’d crossed the threshold in.

“Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?” she asked, the lilts of a tender English accent carrying the words in a gentle waft across the store. Her lips were painted the exact sort of red Darcy felt like she’d been searching for her entire life in a lipstick.

“Nothing in particular.” Darcy traced the gold embossed shape of a peacock on a pack of blank cards. “Something to make me want to write, maybe.”

“I’ve found that the finer your writing instruments and stationery, the more difficult it is to decide which thoughts deserve the privilege of being written by them and in them.” Her smile turned sweeter, almost mischievous, curving beautifully into her soft features. “Granted, I don’t usually count on telling customers this.”

Darcy took the pack of cards off the shelf and brought it to the register. “Obligation is the best muse. And it seems like thank you notes might be the most motivational kind of obligation.”

The woman at the counter typed her total into the register, and as Darcy exchanged her cash for the cards and a small paper bag to keep them in, she pushed a stray lock of perfectly curled brown hair behind her ear. “Thank you notes are exciting. Big party coming up? Wedding or something like that?”

Her heart sank into her stomach, but Darcy plastered on a smile anyway. “Something like that.”

“Well, congratulations on your big party. If you ever need any more thank you notes or feather quills or...customized wax seals, we’ll be here. Thanks for popping in.”

“Thanks for all your help, um…”

“Peggy,” the woman filled in for her, with one more dazzling smile. “And you?”

“Darcy. Thanks again.”

The bell on the door jingled as she made her way out, and Darcy peeked up to the sky at the first crack of thunder, static filling the air as the heavy black clouds began to sag closer, the first fat droplets of rain striking her on the top of the head. She tucked her paper bag of thank you notes under her coat, close to her chest, and speed-walked toward the clothing shop a few doors down, in the hopes that she might find an umbrella.

The little boutique was just as enchanting, with its rows of home-stitched cardigans and print dresses of every color Darcy could imagine, and a few she only knew on sight. There were no umbrellas available, though, and the only raincoat in stock was about two sizes too small. The shopkeeper offered her sympathy, and, leaning across the counter to lift her eyes to a sky that was more black than gray now, pointed out that at least the shops from here to the end of the street all had awnings she could duck under or search for forgotten umbrellas customers may have left in the months past. This would have been helpful, had she meant the end of the street leading toward the Pegasus; the last covered entryway was to the Emerald Bridges Bookshop, and the owner usually had a pot of coffee on during a cold day - if she asked nicely and promised to return it, he might be able to lend her an umbrella from the apartment he occupied above his store. 

“Thanks,” Darcy mumbled, chewing her lip as she folded her arm close to her chest to keep her earlier purchase safe from the rain. It  _ had _ been the destination she was looking forward to most - if she needed any excuse to pay them a visit, this might be it.

So, when it seemed like there might be a break in the rainfall (there wasn’t), Darcy lowered her head and speed walked out the door, keeping as close as she could to the buildings on her right and inevitably getting splashed all the while. She was just about to turn tail and cut her losses when she finally felt the familiar squish of a doormat beneath her feet. Above her head gently swung the large wooden figure of an open book. Blinking away the raindrops that had tangled themselves in her eyelashes, she pushed through the front door with more force than was probably necessary.

“Shit,” she gasped, when the door hit the wall behind it with a loud clang - Darcy fumbled for the doorknob to very gently return it to closed, gluing an apologetic face as she turned toward the register.

Yet another teenager glanced up at her through neatly cropped bangs as she panted on the doorstep, trying not to cast water everywhere around her. The girl set down the iPhone she’d been browsing and stepped out from around the counter. “Welcome to Emerald Bridges Bookshop. Do you, uh...can I hang up your coat for you?”

“Um - yeah. Please - shit, sorry, let me catch my breath.” The rush of running through the rain had faded into the chill of...well, running in the rain. It was only when she propped her hands on her hips to inhale deeper that she realized how fucking cold the water had made her.

The girl shuffled toward her faster, hands outstretched, sympathy seeping into her smile. “Here - sorry, you’ve gotta be freezing. We’ve got coffee up in the back, lemme see if the boss has a brew on. Uh, there’s a space heater and a couch over by the staircase, how ‘bout you come on back and...try to get warmed up.”

Darcy’s shoes squelched unpleasantly no matter how hard she tried to drain them at the doormat, but she didn’t seem to leave too much of a mess on her way past the bookshelves, toward the squashy looking couch propped up against the back staircase. The space heater felt like a godsend, radiating warmth down to her bones while the girl rounded her way up the stairs to the plain door at the top. Darcy fell onto the couch (and figured she might never get up) as the girl rapped out three knocks.

“Steve? That next pot ready? We’ve got a customer.”

The door creaked open slowly, and a husky male voice replied, “In  _ this _ rain? Are they crazy?”

“Only a little,” Darcy called, holding her hands out toward the space heater. “I’m kinda new in town.”

The air seemed to go still for one moment of silence, apart from the rain falling outside, and then two pairs of footsteps made their way back down the stairs. The girl held out a big, steaming Styrofoam cup out to her - Darcy mouthed a quick  _ thank you _ , her cheeks growing hot - and the man, with the most nonplussed expression on the most handsome face Darcy had ever seen, simply stood there with his coffee pot in his hand.

“Sorry,” he said, dark blue eyes darting toward the floor. “My filter disappears when I head upstairs. But, uh, welcome. Thanks for coming by. I’m...er...Steve.”

“Good to meet you, Er-Steve.” Darcy’s teeth had finally stopped chattering. She flicked a wet strand of hair behind her ear. “Darcy.”

A lopsided smile rose to his lips. “Darcy. That’s...kinda pretty.”

“And I’m Kate,” volunteered the girl from Steve’s side, a mischievous grin creeping up her face as she sliced right through the tension with her upbeat tone. “So, where you from?”

“Huh?” Darcy heard herself say. She had become very busy trying not to stare at Er-Steve and his gigantic torso that he’d wrapped in, of all things, a cream-colored sweater, and guided her line of sight into the cup of coffee before taking a long, savory gulp. “Oh - um, west side of Pennsylvania. I’m taking some time to...get shit off my mind and see if I can’t write anything worthwhile in a new place.”

“A writer, huh?” Steve lifted his coffee pot to gesture at the general layout of the store. “Well, seems like you’ve found your people.”

“Seems like I have. Looks like you guys have quite a selection.”

“I persuaded him to start selling graphic novels, too,” Kate chimed in, sauntering back toward the register. “He’s my boss and I love him, but he’s also a grumpy old fart who doesn’t like change.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “I ain’t  _ that _ old.” He glanced to Darcy again, the most dashing sheepish smile on his face that she’d ever seen, and took a step closer, his coffee pot aloft. “Here - let me top you off and, uh, I think I’ve got a spare umbrella upstairs somewhere. Please try not to get the books wet?”

Darcy felt herself begin to blush at how close he was, just filling her cup, and realized that she’d left a dark wet circle on the spot she’d briefly occupied on the couch. “Yeah - shit, sorry about all this mess.”

Steve shrugged on his way back up the stairs. “Happens. You’re welcome to stay till it lets up.”

Darcy’s face was still hot once the door had swung softly shut behind him. Kate’s voice shook her out of the small stupor of definitely  _ not _ watching Er-Steve’s perfect ass bunch and flex in his jeans with every upward step. “Jesus. He likes you already.”

“What?”

“I told you, he’s a grumpy old fart. I’ve seen that vein in his forehead pop at customers tracking in mud or water through the store, but for you, he goes back up to get you an umbrella and isn’t a  _ total  _ tool about it. Grumbling,” she added quickly, one corner of her mouth quirking up, “but still. You made an impression.”

“Which means there’s still time to fuck it all up,” Darcy mused. With the space heater blasting her upper half, her fingers had  _ almost _ lost all their pruny little wrinkles. “When I’m drier, you wanna show me the graphic novel section?”

Kate’s toothy grin glistened under the fluorescents. “I thought you’d never ask.”

* * *

About a half hour later, rain still pounded down hard on the roof, Er-Steve hadn’t descended back down the stairs, and Kate had provided Darcy a leftover plastic bag to collect the small bookshelf of titles she was bound to build into her room at the Pegasus by the end of her visit. She had never been terribly interested in comic books until now, but the compendiums Kate had assembled for her, all a mix of women-written fiction and memoir, all different art styles and colors, might make the genre worth a look.

“And  _ this _ one,” Kate said, pushing yet another trade, as she called them, into Darcy’s bag, “is a Kelly Sue DeConnick original, about how women who don’t fit the traditional mold get sent off to this other planet, and the government is super corrupt and - ”

“Kate.” Darcy mustered up as kind a smile as she could, her shoulders sagging. She knew kids were exhausting, but teenagers...of all the teenagers she’d dealt with the last few days, this was something else. “You tell me the whole plot, I’m not gonna have to read the thing.”

“True.” Kate eyed the bulging plastic she’d assembled for her lone customer, sucking in both lips. “Hey, can I ask you somethin’? Somethin’ personal?”

“Shoot.”

“You said earlier you were trying to come here and write to get shit off your mind. And...I don’t know, it’s not like  _ everybody  _ goes on vacation every time something fucked up happens to them, so…” The notes in her voice passed without impatience or vitriol, only the curiosity that came with talking to strangers.

“My mom died. Little over a week ago.” The water outside pounded against the windowpane over Kate’s shoulder, big fat droplets tangling together before sliding down the glass. “She planned this whole thing for me before, wanted me to see where she grew up, where she met my dad.” She shrugged. “I got some deadlines pushed back, and...here I am.”

Kate rocked back on her feet, hands coming to rest on her hips. “Shit. I - I’m sorry for your loss. I was just wondering - guess I’m pretty good putting my foot in it.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Darcy gulped, shaking her head. “I waltzed into your store dripping like a drowned rat. I don’t expect you have many strangers coming in raising a big ruckus like I did.”

A smile tugged on Kate’s lips. “Hey, now, it’s not  _ my _ store. If the boss hears you talking about his baby that way, he’ll throw a fit.”

“His baby, huh? How long has he had this place, anyway?”

“Last few years. He came into town when I was in...middle school, I wanna say.” The smile faded slowly from her face, and she dropped her gaze somewhere toward the floor. “I tease him for being grumpy now, but...he was a whole different person when he came here.”

Darcy opened her mouth to ask how, but before the first word could leave her lips, the door at the top of the stairs creaked open and shut once more, Er-Steve emerging with a heavy-looking raincoat over his sweater. His brow unfurled briefly when he saw that Darcy was still here, a pile of books sheathed in her bag seated atop the counter by the register. At his side, he held a plain black umbrella, as promised.

“Glad I found this before you could leave,” he said to Darcy, passing it to her, then, turning to Kate, asked, “Scott ‘n Cassie not here yet?”

Kate shook her head, eyes flickering up toward the clock on the wall. 2:25. “Nope. They still got five minutes, probably got caught up in the rain. I can man the fort till they get here, chief.”

“No dice, Bishop. Wouldn’t leave you here alone even if it  _ was _ legal.” He leaned into the counter, thick arms folding one over the other and glanced back up to Darcy. “You find everything okay?”

“Peachy,” Darcy grinned. “Kate’s been a lot of help.”

“You don’t say,” Steve deadpanned, peeling back one side of Darcy’s bag to peek at the wealth of titles she’d picked up. “By the time you leave this place, you’re gonna be some kinda comic book genius. If you end up interested, check out Phil’s place across the way, Phil’s Cards and Comics. He’s got the whole shebang.”

“Once I manage to get through this reading list, I’ll give it a go.” She slid a hundred dollar bill across the counter, Kate depositing it into the register and counting out her change. “Where you off to on this dark and dreary day, Er-Steve?”

“There’s an estate the next town over getting rid of a bunch of books, promised I’d come see if they’ve got anything I can sell.” A rare, proud smile crossed his lips. “We’re the biggest secondhand bookseller in the state.”

“Wow. Congratulations.”

“Thanks, Darcy.” He held her gaze a moment longer, the handsome smile turning just the other shade of devilish. What was it about him? He carried such notes of intensity to him, ones that made her stomach go light and swoopy, just the least bit mysterious, but then he ran a sweet little bookstore, poured her coffee, shared an umbrella with her, not a word crossing his tongue that wasn’t polite or carefully measured.

He was all the wrong kinds of dangerous, and there was no doubt at all in her mind, she wanted to see him again soon.

As Darcy attempted to untie her tongue and answer him, the bell above the door jingled, a dark-haired man holding his coat over his head and the head of the girl beside him, shuffling through and dragging his feet against the doormat.

“Sorry we’re late!” the stranger called over the sound of the door slamming shut behind them. “Picked a bad day to let  _ somebody _ practice her driving.” He straightened up, a friendly and apologetic smile washing over his handsome face.

“You do okay in the rain?” Steve asked the girl, who was a bit shorter than Kate or Michelle, her cheeks still the tiniest bit full with baby fat. She cocked a half-smile, shrugging.

“I...might’ve pulled over every time someone came the other way.”

“Better safe than sorry,” the man, Scott, Darcy presumed, added. He carded a hand through his hair, glancing to Kate. “Looks like you’re free to go, kiddo. Dad picking you up today?”

Kate was already halfway out from around the register, a long purple scarf wrapped around her neck and chest. “Nope. My sister. See you guys around. Come visit again soon, yeah?” She nodded to Darcy, grinning. “We can gossip some more about all the other old farts around here.”

“Not that old!” Steve called after her, but the door had already closed behind her. He turned back to Scott and offered his hand. “Alright. I’m off to see a man about a whole pile of books. I’ll be back to close up.” When his eyes flitted back up to her, something twisted pleasantly in Darcy’s stomach. “Darcy, good meeting you.”

“And you, Steve.”

As he jingled through the door, sunlight filtering through the drops in the windows, Darcy realized that it had finally stopped raining.


End file.
